


Beautiful Goodbye

by Bexinthecity247



Category: The Durrells (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Goodbyes, Love, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 20:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17752880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bexinthecity247/pseuds/Bexinthecity247
Summary: Spiros and Louisa say goodbye





	Beautiful Goodbye

The storm loomed. Thick black clouds threatening to break up the last private moment they’d ever share. The water lapped at the shore, some fifty feet below. It ebbed and flowed like the pain in Louisa’s chest. 

They sat, side by side atop the tree stump they’d shared many moments on, but today would be the last.

Neither spoke. A gull screeched above them, splitting the privacy of their bubble.

“I have something for you,” Louisa said now the spell of silence had been broken. 

Spiros looked at her, mouth slightly agape, as she pulled a small brown wrapped package. She handed it to him and averted her gaze to the water. At the edges the faint trace of the mainland was visible. She’d be on the mainland by tomorrow afternoon and the thought made her feel sick.

He held the flattish package in his hand for a long time before he got the courage to open it. It was a wooden frame adorned by shells, lovingly collected by the Durrell family, though he didn’t know that. The frame surrounded a photo of a family he loved and in the middle of the children stood a woman he had come to love so deeply in the past 4 years. His breath caught.

“I thought it might be more appropriate to have one …of the whole family …” she stumbled over the words, the lump in her throat distorting the vowels and the syllables.

He stared at it for so long that she began to doubt her intentions; perhaps it had been a bad idea after all. His thumb rested over the image and she closed her eyes so she couldn’t see the way he traced the image of her face lovingly, in every way he couldn’t touch her. Tears threatened to fall and she took a deep breath.

“It’s perfect, thank you,” he said finally. His voice was thick and she opened her eyes to see the forlorn expression in his. “I wish I had brought something for you.”

She let out an English chuckle around the sob that wanted to erupt. 

“It’s fine, I just… wanted you to have something to remember us… me… by,” she said breathlessly. He captured her hand, drawing her attention back to him.

“Louisa, I’d never be able to forget your family, or you,” he told her.

Her eyes met his and she could see her own sorrow mirrored in his face. Oh how she’d fallen in love with those eyes. She looked away before his gaze became so magnetic that she might not ever be able to look away. 

He pulled away, looking around at his feet. She frowned as he scrabbled for something on the ground. 

Finally he saw a stone he liked.

“It’s not much, but err…please imagine this is my heart,” he said as he placed the small black pebble into her palm. “I’m giving it to you because-” he broke off to stop the flood of tears pressing at his eyes. “because it’s been yours for a long time.”

Silence grew like a cancer, each separated by their joint pain.

“You know, if you asked me to stay, I would,” she said with a shuddering breath.

“But I wouldn’t,” he said. He was looking down at the ground and she was watched as his strong shoulders sagged.

“I know,” she whispered to his back. 

“Not because I don’t want to… I just … if anything happened to you here…” he said passionately and she knew he was right.

“And how will I stop worrying about you?” she countered. A tear had broken free and rolled down her cheek. He had no answer for that. Once he might have told her he was brave, strong. But now? Now he was weakened; love had stripped him of his armour.

He turned his upper body to face her head on and stroked her cheek. 

“Louisa,” he uttered her name; not out of acknowledgement, or even the posing of a question but just to be able to say it for the last time. He felt like he was dying. 

He leaned in and kissed her. It was deep, and passionate and all too fleeting. When he pulled away, the taste of her still on his tongue, he ran a thumb over her lower lip, saying everything with his eyes that his mouth couldn’t.

This was too much for Louis and her already crumbling walls fell away entirely. Tears fell indiscriminately down her cheeks and she bowed her head. She didn’t bother wiping them away, for her sorrow was too great and they’d only be replaced by more. He pulled her into his arms, kissing her head. She clutched his shirt collar and cried into his shoulder.

“I don’t want to leave you,” she said between the sobs. His own tears joined the mix.

“Me neither,” he simply said.

And that was how they spent their last private moment together, expressing the love the they could never talk about. And when the Durrells stepped onto that boat, and after everyone waved goodbye to their favourite taxi driver, Larry would hold his mother while she wept for her loss. But Spiros would wait until he was in the safety of his car before he’d let his steering wheel be the only one to see him cry. He suddenly would know how it felt to be a widow.


End file.
